i'm pamela brown in washington. top stories on this saturday night. a new look inside the january 6th insurrection. the justice department releasing new videos, the police fighting off rioters armed with batons, a hockey stick, even crutches. plus, does russia really want war over ukraine? we're going to go inside the mind of russian president vladimir putin with a former kgb agent who went to school with him. >> and survival against the odds, three fishermen, their both sinks far off the new england coast, how long did they tread freezing water until help arrived. you're in the cnn newsroom. inside the january 6th insurrection, the justice department has released new videos of the attack on the capitol. and we want to warn you, many are filled with obscenities and

shocking brutality. >> call the police. >> here you see the mob is shouting toward the front liners who were trying to breach the doors of the capitol to physically pull the cops into the violent crowd. in another video, we see rioters under a trump 2020 flag finding law enforcement officers. one protester has apparently gotten hold of a police baton, and is using it against them. and now as you're about to see in a curse-filled rant from one protester, a reminder that mike pence was very much a target for not obeying donald trump's illegal demands. >> i'm hearing that pence just caved. is that true? i'm hearing reports that pence caved. i'm telling you, if pence caved, we're going to drag mother

fuckers through the streets. you politicians are going to get drug through the streets because we're not going to have our shit stolen. if you voted for it, we're going to drag your fucking ass through the street. >> by the way, that is ryan nichols, a former u.s. marine from texas. he was arrested and charged last year. well, mike pence pushes back and delivers his most forceful rebuke of his former boss to date. 13 months after the attack on the capitol, pence finally called out donald trump and his lies that as vice president he had the legal authority to overturn the election. cnn's jeremy diamond is at the white house for us tonight. jeremy, just the way that mike pence was so direct. this seemed to catch everyone by surprise. we covered the white house, the trump white house together. and incrementally since then, mike pence has said things against trump and that, you know, it was un-american what he

was suggesting, but this was his most forceful rebuke yet. >> no question about it. we have heard vice president pence previously say that he and donald trump will never see eye to eye as it relates to the events of january 6th, but that is really as far as former vice president mike pence has gone, up until yesterday. in a speech at the federalist society event outside of orlando, florida, the former vice president delivering a stinging rebuke, certainly the most forceful, most aggressive rebuke of former president trump, specifically responding to those comments from the former president arguing that mike pence could have overturned the results of the election. here's the vice president yesterday. >> i heard this week that president trump said i had the right to overturn the election. president trump is wrong. i had no right to overturn the election. the presidency belongs to the american people and the american people alone. and frankly, there is no idea more un-american than the notion

that any one person could choose the american president. under the constitution, i had no right to change the outcome of our election. >> >> reporter: and those words are remarkable and notable, not only because it's the furthest pence has gone in criticizing trump and pushing back on his claims that he could have overturned the election on january 6th. also if you think about who mike pence is and how he conducted himself as vice president, he made an effort day in and day out, as you know well, pam, to not show any daylight at all between himself and then president trump, aligning himself in every single way down to even the mannerisms sometimes as they appeared in public. the question of course is how does pence move forward in a republican party. he was speaking in the republican party as it is today, he was speaking just hours after the rnc censured liz cheney and adam kinzinger, the two members of congress, republicans, who were serving on the january 6th commission, and there really

does seem to be no lane in a republican party primary in 2024, for example, for somebody like mike pence who would push back on these lies that are being propagated about the 2020 election. and that's why pence is still threat threading a very thin needle. he's rebuking the president but you do not hear him call out all the allegations of fraud we have been hearing about the 2020 election. as for former president trump, we did get two statements from him pushing back on mike pence, not going after him as forcefully as you might think but making clear that pence's position was not an automatic conveyer, arguing once again he could have changed the results on january 6th even though of course he could not have according to any legal scholar who you ask and members of congress, pam. >> and strong statement was equally as shocking, again, to reporters who used to cover the trump white house just in how he didn't go after pence the way we would have expected the way he

has gone after other critics who have said he was wrong in the past. jeremy diamond live from the white house tonight. thank you so much. well, donald trump is having a credibility problem with some of the very people who risked their freedom over his big lie. several january 6th protesters are facing federal charges over the capitol attack say they no longer believe his promises. even his recently pledge to pardon the rioters if he's reelected in 2024. cnn crime and justice reporter katelyn polantz explains. >> reporter: those graphic videos come from criminal cases showing criminal defendants including one who is in jail for assaulting police and fighting his charge. so that is the political discourse a year ago. now former president donald trump is talking about pardonening january 6th rioters if he returns to power. justice producer hannah robinowitz and i talked to

defense attorneys representing df d defendants like these, and they say trump's words right now are largely theatrics, political theater. trump is no longer president. he no longer has pardon power. when he was president, people arrested for committing crimes on january 6th asked him to pardon them. he had 14 days left in office. he didn't do it. so now many of these cases are already over or will see their conclusions within the year. that means there will be guilty pleas, trials, sentencing, some defendants will have served years in jail by the time we have the next presidential election. as one defense attorney told us this week no help is coming. so that's the criminal matters. but remember, pam, there still is an ongoing investigation on capitol hill. the house select committee is calling witnesses to testify under subpoena and if they don't, one consequence could be a criminal contempt charge. that would mean a witness could face prosecution in court, a conviction like that could theoretically be pardoned.

representative elaine loria was speaking about the remarks, here's what she said. >> someone who is sort of waving out there that if, you know, i'm president in the future i'm going to pardon you, someone who could be, yuourn you know, thin need to do the right thing to the criminal actions, if they think there's a way in the future to get off from any cons ye y -- consequences, it could color what they do now. >> reporter: there are a lot of moving parts politically and legally. >> katelyn polantz, thank you so much for that. the first american forces sent to reinforce nato allies in eastern europe. that's as russia continues to ramp up military tension on its border with ukraine. this is ukraine's second largest city. thousands of people taking to

the streets today with some saying stop russian aggression. new reporting from the "new york times" says portions of the russian military on the border have reached quote full combat strength, citing ukrainian generals. now, so far, all diplomatic efforts to persuade russia to back down have failed. so what is putin's next move? what's going on with putin? what is he thinking? what's driving his decisions? my next guest has some unique insight. yuri is a former russian spy who studied alongside putin at the kgb institute. thank you very much for joining us. do you see a russian invasion into ukraine as imneglminent. is there a chance putin could pull back from the border? >> thank you for having me. i believe that putin is bluffing. we need to understand that this story about putin being an

intelligence officer in the kgb is all fake news. he never made it to the intelligence service. he was found unqualified. so in the kgb, he was not involved in any meaningful kgb style operation. all his mo tus app ran die comes from his experience in the first half of the '90s in st. petersburg, in gangster war. at the time the situation in the city was similar to what was happening in chicago in the 30s. one gang against another gang, and putin was in the middle. so his actual real modus operandi is that of a gangster, and his main weapon, he weaponized this, this is bluff, putin is bluffing. the reason of what he is doing is domestic. he needs to reinstall himself in

2024 as the president for life of the russian federation. just six months ago, they were talking about possible transition but the latest developments in kazakhstan, president tried to do this transition and lost everything, so it sends a strong signal to putin that the only guarantee for his personal safety for everything he has done so far is to stay in power forever. and this is the reason why he came up with this idea ultimatum, to the united states. his objective are as follows. if he gets something in response from the united states or nato, some kind of small, even a small concession, then the russian resources wishes the country totally controlled by the kremlin, would tell the people, look, this is the statesman who

won cold war too, and he will be made the president for life. if it doesn't work, if he doesn't have any meaningful concessions, then he would keep a pressure below threshold of major conflict, and then the mass media would say to the people, look, the situation is pretty intense, and you don't change forces in the mainstream, so let's reelect our putin, yet for another six or 12 years or whatever it is. this is his strategy. he's bluffing. deep in his heart, he is a covert. because whenever something serious happens in russia, some kind of crisis, even small minor crisis, he goes under cover for three, four days, he is nowhere to be seen. and he shows up when the crisis is over.

>> let me just ask you, i want to be sure to ask this question because you say he's bluffing at the same time this week, the state department warned that russia's planning a false flag operation against ukraine using graphic video and crisis actors to potential justify an invasion. what's your take on that? we have not seen any direct evidence of this, but do you think that is something putin would be doing? >> this is totally fits in what i'm saying, his second option is to keep pressure under a threshold of a major invention. the information i am having basically fits into what the state department said. my information is this. i think it was january 27th the guy whose name is evgeni, known as putin's cook, besides a chef,

besides he is known as the owner of wagner group. this is a mercenary group but it is actually controlled by the russian military intelligence. this is a hitman. in 2014 in annexation of crimea, military actions in donbas and throughout after rica. so about ten days ago, all these guys from africa, dozens of them, were rapidly moved to north -- to eastern ukraine, and came secretly to the same area. i believe that this is a major source of concern. this is they're cooking something, and given the reputation of these guys, they're killers, they're assassins. i'm not sure that it, along the line of fake movie, but

apparently they are preparing a nasty provocation. but again, this is not for a major conflict. all out invasion. i believe this is just to keep the pressure on. >> okay. yuri thank you, that is not inrmation cnn has verified but we would like to talk to you more about what you just relayed on the show. thank you very much for your time tonight. >> thank you for having me, pamela. thank you. well, still ahead, the fda says ivermectin doesn't help against covid, but a group of doctors continues to prescribe the dangerous and unproven therapy. "usa today reporter" adriana rodriguez and dr. jonathan res reiner join me next. >> and truck drivers in canada want vaccine mandates removed so they are swarming the streets for a second straight weekend.

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lunchables! built to be eaten. the death toll from covid-19 in the united states has reached a tragic milestone, 900,000. the announcement came friday and president biden said each soul is irreplaceable. we are less than two years into the global pandemic. it was officially declared on march 11th, 2020, and you can see here the recent surge of the number of daily deaths as the omicron variant spread across the country. thankfully for now, the number of new cases has fallen, and experts say that means the number of new deaths should also fall. and slowly but surely, the number of people getting vaccinated is rising. despite the availability of life-saving vaccines and boosters, anti-vacc americans

continue to ask their doctors for unproven and sometimes dangerous remedies, and they're getting help from a little known national group of physicians called the front line covid-19 critical care alliance. its members are aggressively pushing ivermectin as a wonder drug against covid-19. that is not true based on the science. joining me now is were many adriana rodriguez, usa today health reporter, and cnn medical analyst, dr. jonathan resiginer. before we get started, i went to the fda web site, ivermectin, which is primarily used for animals is approved in human cases to treat intestinal parasitic worms, and topical form to treat head lice and skin conditions. other uses are not approved. so adriana, i want to go to you first, you wrote an article about this group, the front line covid-19 critical care alliance.

they see themselves as heroic doctors fighting for freedom. what kind of momentum are they building? >> thank you so much for having me, pamela. based on my reporting, the fltcc alliance is a group of physicians believe that ivermectin is effective in treating covid-19, and their impact is that, you know, doctors are looking to them for guidance. and are seeking their guidance and following their protocol in prescribing ivermectin for covid-19 patients. >> the article cited data that calls to poison centers about ivermectin spiked dramatically, up 212% from january 1st to september 21st of last year. how reckless is it for these doctors to be pushing this drug like this for this use?

>> well, it's reckless for a couple of reasons, pamela. it's not just reckless because in the wrong dose, this drug, like any drug can hurt you, and ivermectin certainly can, but also people who use drugs like ivermectin tend to not use vaccines, so they look to these drugs as a miracle cure, and it's been touted by the leaders of the organization as a miraculous drug, despite the fact that it's not. what people need to understand is that there are all kinds of drugs which in the lab seem to have certain effect. ivermectin in the lab seemed to have an anti-sars-cov-2 property, but then when trialed in human beings do not work. hydroxychloroquine was one such drug, and you know, the highway is littered with wreckage of all kinds of drugs and the lab looked good but when trialed in

human beings don't work. and ivermectin does not appear to work. >> adriana, this pro-ivermectin group is pushing legislation in several states to force acceptance of it as a legitimate covid treatment. you write in indiana, one gop lawmaker has filed a bill that would not only allow doctors and registered nurses to write a standing order for ivermectin, it would prohibit pharmacies from providing information discouraging its use for covid-19, right? >> right, yeah, and health experts tell me, i mean, this can be very dangerous just because then patients won't be protected by civil suits or if their doctor does any danger to them or any harm. >> so is there any indication this group has a financial incentive with prescribing ivermectin for partients who wat it to treat covid, adriana? >> that's a really good question. that's a little outside of my

reporting. what i have found out, though, is that they do have a list, sort of like a directory of providers that they say do follow their protocol. and most of those providers do have telemedicine web sites that i've looked through, and they do charge some sort of fee sometimes to consult before prescribing the ivermectin to covid patients. >> dr. reiner, i want to go to you. before we let you gor, we have o talk about the fact that the u.s. has surpassed 900,000 deaths as a result of the pandemic. if you look at the charts, the white house was showing back in march of 2020 we are now closer to what they predicted would happen with no intervention. how did we get the numbers so wrong? how did the white house, i should say, get the numbers so wrong? >> i don't think anyone could predict that if our scientists and our pharmaceutical companies

in conjunction produced a truly miraculous drug, a vaccine that could almost abolish the risk of dying from this vaccine that we wouldn't be able to get americans to take it, and the inescapable conclusion is that we are very bad at educating our population. there's a lot of vaccine denialism, and if you consider, which i do, being fully vaccinated is a full prime course plus a boost, only about 27% of americans are fully vaccinated. 27% of americans have received a vaccine plus a boost. and that's why we've had so many deaths. and what's shocking is that we in june of 2021, we had 600,000 deaths. we've had 300,000 deaths in a time period when vaccines have

been available for every adult in this country. they were made widely available a month before that, so 300,000 people have died. almost all of them unvaccinated. in a period of time when any adult in this country could have been vaccinated. that's why we are where we are today. >> all right. we'll leave it there. dr. jonathan reiner, adriana rodriguez, thank you both. >> thank you. >> thank you. was it too late, former vice president mike pence finally calling out his old boss. chris fi lis here to talk about as the republican party says it was just legitimate political discourse before clean up. enamel in its weakened state. it's innovative. my go to toothpaste is going to be pronamel repair. frank is a fan of fast. he's a fast talker. a fast walker. thanks, gary. and for unexpected heartburn...

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is flat wrong for saying his vice president had the legal authority to overturn the 2020 election. it is a simple yet remarkable statement from a imaman who rar opposed his former boss. >> the constitution i had no right to change the outcome of our election. men and women, if we lose faith in the constitution, we won't just lose elections. we'll lose our country. >> joining me now is cnn politics reporter and editor at large, chris cillizza, hi there, chris. >> hey, pam. >> there are a couple of surprising things here, the fact that pence did that and trump quickly firing back at pence with a statement of his own

reading in part i was right and everyone knows it. a great opportunity lost but not forever. in the meantime, our country is going to hell. the fact he fired back with a statement wasn't surprising but it was the fact that we didn't see a more vicious attack from the former president. what do you make of that? >> yeah, i mean, it speaks to how low the bar is, pam, that when he says our country is going to hell, we're all like, that wasn't too bad. i think we have to acknowledge that that any other politician who even came close to this kind of rhetoric, we would say, oh, my gosh, they've gone nuclear. i agree with you. it's not totally proven that donald trump can take a punch. he can dole them out, we know that. he can't take them. politically speaking, what mike pence did was dumb. if mike pence wants to run for president in 2024 or 2028, the people who support donald trump, the people who are anti-trump we

can name, mitt romney, adam kinzinger, and liz cheney, the fact that we can name them. the only thing that explains why mike pence did what he did is he believes it. he has to know that politically speaking he's you not in the majority of where his party is, and i think that, by the way, is a sad thing, but it is a reality. >> there are more important things than politics. >> yeah, this is principles, pam, like there's -- >> this is country over party. >> yes, there is nothing to be gained by mike pence going after donald trump and saying he's wrong. i'm right. we have to get back to the constitution. of course that message should make sense to any republican and ten years ago, it would have. but in this moment, that message is a political loser. and stunning as that is to say, that is a fact. >> and also because of the dichotomy that happened yesterday on the same day the

republican national committee voting to censure liz cheney and adam kinzinger, special doing trump's bidding and using some stunning language in the resolution. representatives cheney and kinzinger are participating in a democratic led persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse to which cheney responded with a video of the rioters saying this was january 6th, this is not legitimate political discourse. now the rnc is trying to clean up saying that it didn't mean that the people who were involved in the violence, it was talking about people not involved in the violence. >> i mean, you can call it whatever you like, lipstick on a pig. the reality of the situation here is that when you say it was legitimate political discourse, when people think of january 6th, they don't think of, oh, the peaceful part of it, they think of the insurrection at the u.s. capitol. it's stunning.

i don't know another word, i feel like i use that word aultd t all the time but it's stunning to me that would party would make it so clear it's a cult of personality, other than a national political institution, organized around a set of. generally it's a group of like minded people coalesced around a set of policy principles. that's not what the current republican party is. it's a group of people coalesced around one person and beholden to that person's whims, many of which, i will note, pam, aren't conservative at all. liz cheney is one of the most conservative by voting record members within the republican caucus. the idea that somehow she's not a real republican, she's considerably more conservative in terms of voting record and policies than donald john trump, but again, we're not talking about a party coalesced around common ideas, we're talking about a cult of personality, and that's the difference here. >> unfortunately we're out of time. you did write an article about the other side of the aisle,

biden scoring much needed political wins. what that means for him and his administration, how long he needs to keep this momentum going. chris cillizza, we're going to have to have that conversation at a later date. thank you so much, chris. >> happy to do it. >> check out that article, though, from chris cillizza, the job of a supreme court justice, it is a lifetime appointment. but what about their lifetime partners. could their influence be a concern? that's next. taking metamucil everyday can help. metamucil psyllium fiber, gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. it also helps lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so you can feel lighter and more energetic metamucil. support your daily digestive health. and try metamucil fiber thins. a great tasting and easy way to start your day. ever wonder what everyone's doing on their phones? they're banking, with bank of america. his girlfriend just caught the bouquet,

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while we wait for president biden to announce his pick to replace stephen breyer on the supreme court, florida's republican governor ron desantis is criticizing the justices appointed by his own party. >> i kind of feel that it's always our side where you will have somebody just not have the fortitude or the backbone to faithfully apply the law and constitution in situations in which it will not be popular with the elite rung of our society where you will get smeared by corporate media, where you'll have law professors, you know, screeching and all this other stuff. and, you know, someone like justice thomas, scalia, they didn't give a damn what any of those people thought and i think that they were better justices as a result. >> you heard him pise justice clarence thomas there, the political activities of thomas' wife are underscrutiny, her

activism stands out in highly politicized washington, and it raises questions about potential conflicts of interest. jenny ginni tom has has been an outspoken activist for decades. most recently, signing on to this open letter from conservatives to house minority leader kevin mccarthy denouncing the january 6th committee. one month after that letter, justice thomas was the lone public dissent in a case involving the january 6th committee. no other justices indicated they would have granted former president trump's request to block the document handover from the national archives to the committee. thomas provided no explanation for his dissent. >> there are surely substantiative reasons consistent with his prior jurisprudence why justice thomas dissented from the court's decision to not help president trump in that case. but for folks who are already

septem skeptical for the court, as folks who view the court as a deeply partisan institution, the fact that justice thomas is given the sole dissenter sets o alarm bells. >> ginni thomas' ties to president trump, and his aides go back years, smilubmitting a t of disloyal aides directly to trump, before the january 6th riot, she sympathized with the stop the steal rally goers, writing quote god bless each of you standing up or staying. she later wrote these were posted before the violence at the capitol. critics say justice thomas should have recused himself in the case because of his wife's activism. her defenders say she has every right to lead her own life and see no reason why that should have a bearing on her husband, if she's on a party in a case or

financially invested, there is tho indication she has a financial interest in cases before the high court. >> clarence thomas does not hold the views he holds because of any one person. justices are going to have spouses that have the right to have opinions, and be involved and engaged and i trust justice thomas and other members on the supreme court bench to do what is right. >> reporter: but the debate has continued because of ginni thomas' ties to another issue before the court. she sits on the advisory board of a conservative group, national association scholars, that organization submitted two legal briefs to the supreme court in favor of plaintiffs challenging affirmative action and admissions at two universities. peter wood is president of the organization and says ginni thomas played no role in the legal briefs. >> none whatsoever, as far as i know, she doesn't even know that we filed such briefs. i don't talk about those sorts of issues with her. >> reporter: citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington is calling for justice thomas' recusal. >> in terms o. best pf the beste

where his wife is closely affiliated with an organization that has taken a clear position, it is -- it seems clear to us that his impartiality could be questioned. >> reporter: the federal law states quote, any justice, judge or magistrate judge of the united states shall disqualify himself and any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned, end quote but it's up to the individual justice to decide if there is a conflict. for his part, justice thomas has recused himself 32 times until the last 28 according to to fix the court, but never because of his wife's activism. in 2018, ginni thomas interviewed her husband for the daily collar where he talked about his dedication to independence of thought. >> as a judge, you don't get to be on one team or the other. you have to think independently

in order to live up to the oath that you take. >> reporter: some experts think justices ought to explain their decisions to recuse or not to recuse more often in order for more transparency. ginni thomas' activism stands in contrast. resigned from a leadership role within anti-abortion group. advocates of reform continue their calls for more transparent and stricter recusal roles. ginni thomas declined a request for an interview and declined to comment for this story. up next on this saturday, a trucker protest over vaccine mandates now in its second weekend and spreading across canada. what they're calling for and why many canadians are asking for the government to do more to end the rallies. , find the gift that touches their heart. ♪

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for the second weekend in a row truckers in canada are protesting the country's covid vaccine mandates. truckers and demonstrators are protesting in the streets. cnn's paula newton has more. >> reporter: the sound is deafening and yet protesters are demanding to be heard. all day long and at all hours of the night, those with the so-called freedom convoy say

they're stating put until vaccine mandates are dropped, the masks come off and life returns to the way it was. >> this whole event has gone beyond just vaccines and it is now about the entire ordeal. >> we're asking for our freedom. that's all we want. >> reporter: so they've been free, free to park big rigs next to the prime minister's office, free to set up camp in front of the country's national parliament. as angry and frustrated as these protesters are, residents say they feel like hostages and they want police to do more. [indiscernible] so desperate was this woman, she appealed directly to the protesters. >> residents, children, elderly are suffering. >> reporter: they heard her, but they're not listening.

it seems, to anyone. >> nothing but disruptive. they're claiming their freedom while i can't hear anything. >> reporter: ottawa police say they have learned much in the past week, especially after reports of assaults, intimidation and allegations of hate speech and symbols. >> our goal is to end the demonstration. >> reporter: to do that, they have called in reenforcements moving to a surge and contain strategy. the police chief warns -- >> this remains, as it was from the beginning, an increasingly volatile and dangerous demonstration. >> reporter: and it is spreading, like a contagion itself, right across the country, a handful of protests including a border blockade

between canada and montana. toronto closing a large section as truckers descend and, more worrying, closing off the adjacent hospital row where exhausted health care workers carry on battling covid. >> anyone who attempts to disrupt hospital access and routes of emergency operations, including ambulance, fire or police will be subject to strict enforcement. >> reporter: both police and political leaders are warning this now resembles an occupation with no quick or easy end. the gop formerly seventuring two of its own, even suggesting january 6th was, quote, legitimate political discourse. we're going to dig into the state of the gop right now with

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